söndag 27 december 2009

The recent book Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford sings praise to the happy productive engaged craftsman and repair mechanic in direct contact with realities in his shop filled with useful tools and spare parts, as compared to the unhappy unproductive alienated bureaucrat imprisoned in his cubicle filled with useless documents.

This is Homo faber = Man the Smith or Man the Maker or the working manusing tools.

Homo faber is the craftsman of a pre-industrial society using tools in an inventive fashion according to his own inspiration, as compared the worker at the assembly line of the industrial society repeating a prescribed set of simple routine tasks without inspiration. Homo faber would then connect to Homo ludens, the playing man, while the worker at the assembly line would associate with Homo tristis, the sad man.

If now Homo faber has largely disappeared as production has become mechanized, one may ask if Homo faber may reappear today as the computer wiz using the computer as a tool in an active inventive way, as compared to a Homo consumans passively consuming whatever is presented on the screen. The modern Homo faber could then be

Homo Computans = the working man playing the computer.

Other possibilities are Homo musicus orHomo coquus = the cooking man.

Homo Computans would be representative of the interactive read-write-execute society now emerging as the interactive web expands with blogs, youtube and facebook, as compared to the passive read-obey society of the 20th century with state-controled uni-directional radio and television channels.

The British star reporter Zeinab Badawi from BBC tries to get a reaction on Climategate from

this years Laurates assembled in the Royal Bernadotte Library at Stockholm Castle for a Swedish Television show on Dec 22.

Surprisingly, nobody expresses any anger or criticism over the violation of scientific principles

in Climategate. The common conclusion seems rather to be, to the disappointment of Badawi and the Swedish people, that this is the way science is, in particular at the frontiers of knowledge as in the case of climate science: Nothing to get excited about. Over time incorrect results will be corrected, by possibly new incorrect results and so on. That's how science is advanced.

The same relaxed attitude is taken by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarding Nobel Prizes: The Academy has made a statement on climate change in support of IPCC denying Climategate. The Academy and its Laurates thus seem to take the common standpoint that Climatgate is a non-event.

It seems that from a Nobel Prize viewpoint, Climategate is considered as most uncommon, so improbable that it cannot have happened, and at the same time most common just following the standard of normal science.

But if so, science has lost its most valuable asset and has become just like any other kind of more or less dirty business or politics. Or maybe it has always been like that?

to climate alarmism gets three lines at the end. Climategate is not mentioned.

The science of Wikipedia is controled by anonymous editors or wikipedians who control scientific truth to their taste. This violates the most fundamental principles of science of openness with the truth being defined by named living scientists held responsible for their scientific findings and claims.

The fact that scientific truth today is defined by the authority of closed societies of non-scientists, takes us back the Inquisition before the Enlightenment with religion defining the laws of physics of the World.

Investors in low-carbon or no-carbon energy technology, such as solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear power, say the prices for carbon permits must be much higher than current levels -- in some cases, as much as €60 a ton -- to make their systems cost-competitive with coal, oil or natural gas.

I am not to complain about the standard of Swedish engineering education.

This is the basic problem: LJ is himself a product of a traditional engineering education, and is incapable of understanding what is today required to be competitive. If people in charge of Swedish industry cannot understand that Swedish engineering education cannot rest in tradition, but has to be modernized, then the consequence is that Swedish industry will be shut down. It is not even clear that we can shift to producing wheelbarrows if cars don't work out. Too bad, but who cares?

The next to go is Volvo Car, sold to Ford 10 years ago by Leif Johansson. Too bad, but...

The basic reason Swedish car industry is now being dismantled, is that it was sold out 10 years because Swedish industrial competence was no longer sufficient. Why? Old-fashioned education?

The World leaders thus passed a potentially dangerous tipping point with the push coming from the collapse of UN climate science in Climategate. In order to restore sound rational scientific thinking, which most people would ask for, it is necessary to restore the credibility of science and scientists.

To this end it is necessary that scientific academies withdraw their unconditional support of the UN climate panel IPCC. Without such support IPCC will fall together with UN climate science and politics.

You would not be here unless you – like me – were convinced that this danger is real. This is not fiction, this is science. Unchecked, climate change will pose unacceptable risks to our security, our economies, and our planet. That much we know.

torsdag 17 december 2009

The UN climate politics is now collapsing in front of our eyes inside the Bella Conference Center of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, while the snowstorm and activist demonstrations rage outside. The collapse was triggered by Climategate showing the UN Climate Panel IPCC is based on scientific fraud.

The collapseY will not change global politics, but science in general and climate science in particular is hit by a strong blow. IPCC will be dismantled and the big governmental institutions behind IPCC must be reorganized; it is inconceivable that Phil Jones resumes his position.

Scientific academies and societies, including in particular the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, have to back off from their support of IPCC and regain credibility by resurrecting scientific standards with a clear distinction between science and politics.

It will be very interesting to follow the emergence of a new FEniCS rising from the ashes...

The witness by Patrick J. Michaels, formerly professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia (1980-2007) and now senior fellow at the Cato Institute, should be listened to by the Royal Swedish Academy in particular:

Few people understand the real significance of Climategate...But there's something much, much worse going on—a silencing of climate scientists, akin to filtering what goes in the bible, that will have consequences for public policy, including the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recent categorization of carbon dioxide as a "pollutant.

"The bible I'm referring to, of course, is the refereed scientific literature. It's our canon, and it's all we have really had to go on in climate science (until the Internet has so rudely interrupted). When scientists make putative compendia of that literature, such as is done by the U.N. climate change panel every six years, the writers assume that the

peer-reviewed literature is a true and unbiased sample of the state of climate science.

That can no longer be the case. The alliance of scientists at East Anglia, Penn State and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (in Boulder, Colo.) has done its best to bias it.

Three leading climatologists in the Royal Swedish Academy have signed a letter to UN contradicting the official statement by the Royal Academy in support of IPCC and scientific consensus on AGW. This is the same filtering of scientists not believing in the bible as described by Michaels. This is very damaging to the very core of science.

onsdag 16 december 2009

The leaders of World are now assembling in Copenhagen to save the World from burn-up by transferring a certain amount of money from the rich to the poor world to help the poor go green. The big one question is: How much money?

Emission cut is secondary since it cannot be checked nor controled if violated.

Over the next three days the leaders of almost every nation on earth will gather in Copenhagen. Their role; their opportunity; their responsibility: to shape the future of humanity. It is a defining moment.

Gordon Brown offers $300 million as start-up with a possible increase to $1-2 billon or about 0.5-1% of the UK budget deficit. Per year. If there are 5 billion poor people in the World, that would mean about 20 cents a year. Altogether from EU maybe $2 per year per poor person to go green. Altogether, from the rich world, say $5 per poor person per year to go green.

The trouble with CO2 emission is that everything counts: If a poor person uses a piece of wood to cook a meal, that adds to the total global emission. Supposing that an emissionfree meal would cost $1 extra, the $5 dollar would cover 5 days. But there are 360 more days in a year.

It means that the contemplated transfer to the poor world to go green, may be two orders of magnitude too small. With a cost $1 per day, which is still small, the yearly global cost would be $2 trillion about twice as much as the estimated 2010 budget deficit of the US.

The energy cost per person and day is about $5-10 in the rich world and $1-2 in the poor world. To equilibrate + go green could require $10 trillion, to be compared with the US or EU 2008 GDP of about $15 trillion of a World total of $60 trillion. Thus the transfer would have to be of the same size as the US or EU GDP. Is it realistic?

Sweden offers $0.3 billion per year until 2012 to start go green for poor countries. New money? No, it is taken from the foreign aid budget intended for health care and education. Clever?

Japan proposes a total of $5 billion a year until 2012, up from a EU bid of $3 billion. The gap to the required amount starting at $1000 billion = $1 trillion, is enormous. No wonder that no agreement will be reached. Climate alarmism is now collapsing as a result of a shaky scientific foundation incapable of carrying any economical weight.

The double hidden agenda of limiting the use of fossil fuel in poor countries in order to use it instead in rich countries, and using green money in poor countries for anything but climate, has now been uncovered, and confidence is at zero.

If you don't buy this analysis right off, compare with what Janos Pasztor—the Director of U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s Climate Change Support Team, says:

This is not a climate-change negotiation … It’s about something much more fundamental. It’s about economic strength.

Since Swedish climate policy, now forcefully pushed by our Minister of Environment Andreas Carlgren leading EU through the Copenhagen Summit, rests on the statement by the Academy,

it seems necessary to seek to understand why the Academy is making a statement in contradiction to its own scientific experts and prefers not to see Climategate as a violation of basic scientific principles. The question presents itself to what extent the Academy statement is a political statement resulting from political pressure?

We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities.

The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity.

That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method.

The science of climate change draws on fundamental research from an increasing number of disciplines, many of which are represented here.

As professional scientists, from students to senior professors, we uphold the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which concludes that ‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ and that ‘Most ofthe observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’.

The impression is given that Climategate and these scientists have never existed.

If we analyze the statement, we see how cleverly it is formulated in newspeak, by clever lawyers and not simple honest scientists: Superficially, it can be read as a clear support of IPCC alarmism, while in reality the support is almost empty:

What is the meaning of "warming", "climate system", "isunequivocal"?

unequivocal = unambiguous: To just say that something is "unambiguous" does not make anything less ambiguous. A lawyer must understand this.

What is in fact the "observational evidence for global warming"? Hockeystick?

What is the conclusion of "most of the observed warming"? That the sealevel will rise 7 meters by melting polar caps in 10 years?

What is the meaning of "findings of IPCC". Is IPCC a scientific research institution? Not a political UN Panel?

Will the Met Office succeed in overpowering climate alarmism skeptics by the mere number of scientists who have signed the empty statement? Of course not: A thousand times zero is still zero!

At the same time BBC reports that the Copenhagen climate summit negotiations have been "suspended". Evidently G77 is walking out in protest with the motivation that

It has become clear that the Danish presidency - in the most undemocratic fashion - is advancing the interests of the developed countries at the expense of the balance of obligations between developed and developing countries.

No surprise of course. It is now time for UK to send in their clever lawyers...waving the statement by the UK scientists...asking the developing World to listen and to be reasonable...and not use the fuel which could better be used in Europe...

These guilty-until-proven-innocent villains have also been fingered by Canada’s warmist spinner-in-chief, Dr. Andrew Weaver. Dr. Weaver, who is Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, claims that his office has been broken into twice, that colleagues have suffered hack attacks, and that mysterious men masquerading as technicians have attempted to penetrate the university’s data defences.

There have been no arrests, and there are no suspects, but Dr. Weaver has no problem pointing to the shadowy culprits — the fossil fuel industry.

Over and over in the climate debate we hear politicians say that they rely on the authority of scientific academies such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as concerns AGW. This is logical since science is authoritarian in the sense that the truth is decided by scientists and not the people or politicians. Scientific truth is not determined by democratic vote by the people, but by scientific arguments between scientists.

If the Earth is flat or not is not decided in a referendum or in a parliament. Nor is the outcome of a soccer match.

The term scientific consensus is thus in principle contradictory, since factual truth is not even within the group of scientists decided by majority voting, only by scientific facts and arguments using the scientific method.

In practice however, the term scientific consensus is used heavily as a support of AGW alarmism. It is thus claimed that there is scientific consensus on potentially catastrophical AGW on the basis that scientific academies support this view.

This gives the Royal Swedish Academy the important role to decide the truth. So how is this done? By scientific arguments between knowledgable scientists using the scientific method?

Unfortunately not, and this is very unfortunate for the credibility of science and scientists.

Instead of living up to its responsibility, the Royal Swedish Academy thus relies on the political IPCC panel. Now IPPC claims to rely on scientific consensus of scientific academies, but in reality relies on a small group of scientists, which are not using the scientific method as demonstrated in Climategate.

This is a potentially very dangerous self-propelling system, where the control of scientific reason has been lost. This is what we now see happening in Copenhagen.

When a Royal Academy of Sciences turns from science to politics, its role is being lost. Why is then the Royal Academy giving up its most valuable asset: science and scientific credibility, threatening to eliminate itself?

Is this a crisis of science itself, or only the organization of science? Or both?

Is the Academy forced to support AGW alarmism by political pressure, or is the Academy tempted by monetary or other gains? Or is jit ust general indifference to scientific values?

Ingemar Nordin, professor of theory of science, points to the fact that the Royal Swedish Academy is controled by authority, the authority of IPCC as concerns climate science. But scientists cannot, should not, be controled by authority, only by scientific facts and arguments. An academy controled by authority is not a Scientific Academy, but rather a religious College of Cardinals.

Therefore, there is no sound reason to impose expensive and restrictive public policy decisions on the peoples of the Earth without first providing convincing evidence that human activities are causing dangerous climate change beyond that resulting from natural causes.

Before any precipitate action is taken, we must have solid observational data demonstrating that recent changes in climate differ substantially from changes observed in the past and are well in excess of normal variations caused by solar cycles, ocean currents, changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and other natural phenomena.

It is not the responsibility of ‘climate realist’ scientists to prove that dangerous human-caused climate change is not happening. Rather, it is those who propose that it is, and promote the allocation of massive investments to solve the supposed ‘problem’, who have the obligation to convincingly demonstrate that recent climate change is not of mostly natural origin and, if we do nothing, catastrophic change will ensue. To date, this they have utterly failed to do so.

The following members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences have signed the letter

and thus disagree with the official statement of the Academy: David Gee, Wibjörn Karlen and Björn Malmgren.